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Anymage
One thing that really drives me up a wall about Shadowrun, especially lately, is the utter dearth of entry-level products. The novice GM is expected to grok metaplot, balance, pay rate, setting, etc. all on his own. Very tricky, and very unpleasant.

I want to get some friends started in Shadowrun soon. However, I am far from the must-own-every-book type (I want to run things with the BBB and only the BBB). I'm absolutely horrible at winging the whole fragging world, though, and want to make them shadowrunners, not fantasy heroes or random citizens of the sixth world.

Out of the published Shadowrun newbie products, only the Quick Start Guide has anything close; First Run has one interesting scene, one piece of metaplot wanking drek, and one overly open-ended and non-shadowrunny plot. The adventures on the main site are even worse, being simple advertisements that have none of the information a novice would need to get into the game at all.

So what I'm looking for are dungeon crawls. Plain, simple, unashamed-of-it dungeon crawls. Primarily site-based runs complete with maps, stats, and basic troubleshooting that have little or nothing to do with metaplot and Shadowrun's constant self-referencing. Slow and basic introductions into the world of shadowrun and what it is to be a shadowrunner, so I can focus on just knowing the site well enough to improvise and not have to completely change tracks when the group wants to go raise hell in the barrens. And with a shallow enough learning curve so that I can have the basics under my belt before throwing shedim-possessed, orichalcum-laced great dragon cyberzombies at them.

So are there any good, basic entry-level products/adventures out there, and if so, where can I find them?
shadd4d
Try and get them as a rescue party to some research installation that's working on the cutting edge of genetic research. The medium? Those big mantis things... Something mantis. Something a la Aliens works wonders. Still creep out my buddies from that one.

Don

PS. Play around with the metaphors, so what happens in the movie happens later in the game.
mfb
your best bet, really, is to convert the old SR1 and 2 runs.
Anymage
QUOTE (mfb)
your best bet, really, is to convert the old SR1 and 2 runs.

...which are inconveniently out of print, and as Kazaa is practically a virus at this point, where would I find these without having to invest premium collector time and prices?
shadd4d
Used bins. Lots of them here still have copies of Harlequin and Harlequin's Back (on the list for next month).

Failing that, check out the novels 1-19 and just come up with something. Can't really think of a prepared dungeon crawl at the moment.

Don
Lilt
You could try and convert some stuff from other systems. Spycraft might have some stuff for about the right setting that could be converted.

You could even run a direct D&D adventure-> SR adventure conversion by transforming all the orcs with crosbows in the cave to smugglers with ARs and SMG.
mfb
kazaa lite. not that i condone the downloading and distribution of out-of-print gaming materials.
TinkerGnome
There's always E-bay. Lots of old modules go for <$8.
lspahn72
QUOTE (Anymage)
QUOTE (mfb @ Apr 21 2004, 04:26 AM)
your best bet, really, is to convert the old SR1 and 2 runs.

...which are inconveniently out of print, and as Kazaa is practically a virus at this point, where would I find these without having to invest premium collector time and prices?



I have found as many as 10 out of print book on Ebay for $25. The pic shows pretty good shape....I think they were leftovers taht someone bought at auctions. Not fans...

And Remeber, we all know how nice it is to just run to a P2P product and download, but if we download this stuff they wil stop making it! FASA already went under...Lets support Fanpro!
Austere Emancipator
I love the idea:
"The room is 30' by 20' and 10' high, dug into the same dull grey stone as all the rest in the cave. There are two exits: the one you're standing in and one directly opposite, a 8' x 4' arch where a security door sits. In the back left corner there is a pile of bones and shell casings covered in spider webs. There is a steady "drop drop" sound of some waste materials leaking through the stone from the factory above into the corridor behind you. There are no light sources except a green "Exit" light above the security door. In front of the door there are 3 Ork Cyberzombies with MMGs on gyromounts and their Great Dragon pet. What do you do?"
Lilt
Breathe a sigh of relief that you sent the drone in first?
Backgammon
Order a Shadowrun Mission.
broho_pcp
shrug of the bullets with your ultra-munched armor/body stats, go up to the dragon and tear its heart out with your dicoted teeth.
Kakkaraun
Yes. Because Wizkids will surely reprint Silver Angel and DNA-DOA and Missing Blood and...

Oh wait. No, they won't. It isn't a great thing to DL current products, but when something's ancient, and not likely to be reprinted, and you don't want to buy it on eBay (because there, the original company isn't getting anything anyway), I don't see a problem.
BitBasher
DNA/DOA was the shiznit!

Genetic experiments? Check!

Spooky atmosphere? Check!

Canon vampire with a full load of working cyberware that has never been contradicted by any rules book? Check!

Parties tombstones ready? Check!
RangerJoe
A GM in my group was thinking about doing an open-ended dungeon-crawl-esque campaign. The idea was that some kind of very large corporate asset buried deep in the heart of (insert inhospitable area) had recently, and precipitously, been abandoned. Around the entrance to the mountain/cave/dome/etc. a small shadow town had sprung up (a la gold-rush boom towns). The town is a self-organized, anarchic entity. Enter the players. They can run the caves for pay data and gear, ambush folks who run the caves, serve folks who run the caves in the town, etc. etc. This kind of run setting, though untraditional, is a great way to explore the facets of the SR system, as well as pick up some non-char-gen goodies before heading back to the mean streets of Seattle.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Anymage)
So what I'm looking for are dungeon crawls. Plain, simple, unashamed-of-it dungeon crawls.

Renraku Arcology: Shutdown.

And yes, I did ignore the rest of your post for that suggestion. Going to read it over and see if I can come up with a serious suggestion now, but for unashamed-of-it dungeon crawls, you can't beat RA:S.

~J
RangerJoe
Based on the principle that "a good dungeon crawl is one you can walk away from," I don't know if RA:S is a good crawl.... smile.gif
Kagetenshi
RA:S is an excellent dungeon crawl.*

~J

[ Spoiler ]
kevyn668
QUOTE (BitBasher)
DNA/DOA was the shiznit!

Genetic experiments? Check!

Spooky atmosphere? Check!

Canon vampire with a full load of working cyberware that has never been contradicted by any rules book? Check!

Parties tombstones ready? Check!

Agreed!

Don't forget:

Spray can that can turn Plasteel 7 into bubble gum? Check!
RedmondLarry
For 1st and 2nd edition runs, you can find several NEW books for sale for HALF PRICE on StiggyBaby.com. (Divided Assets, Celtic Double Cross, Dark Angel, Elven Fire, Imago, Total Eclipse, Queen Euphoria, and Dream Chipper). Some $4.

Here's the FASA Shadowrun list on StiggyBaby.
Just to be fair, here is the FanPro Shadowrun list. (Support our publisher and your local game store!)

Tips on using a 1st edition adventure:
Ignore Damage Codes like 5M3 listed in the adventure, and instead use what's printed for the same gear in 3rd edition. Treat a skill like "Firearms" as the appropriate shooting skill for any type of firearm on the character, the same for "Armed Combat". Treat a spell like "Heal Severe Wound" as just "Heal". Treat any Etiquette skill (Street, Corporate, etc.) as simply Etiquette.

Replace all Decking to gather information (done as a dungeon-crawl in 1st edition) with a simple roll of <Computer + MPCP> vs. TN of your choice. Make it easy or hard for them to get information from the Matrix as needed for the purposes of your adventure.
MrSandman666
[ Spoiler ]

I did play the first few adventures of Brainscan and Harlekin (not Harlekin's Back, mind you) with a group of absolute greenhorns and it went just smoooooth. cool.gif Of course, both of those campaigns become pretty though once you're about three runs into the book but if you run the two campaigns paralell (which works quite well up to a certain point from which you have to decide which one to pursue further) you should have a fairly good idea of shadowrun to lead it from there, I think. You could drop both campaigns and do something completely new or drop one campaing and finish the other or you could put one campaign on hold while finishing the other and then return to finish the first one.
Both campaigns are fairly well written and really help a new GM to get some experience. However, I strongly recomend to not run any campaign of the two on its own since the learning curve will get pretty steep then.
I bet you could also use two different campaigns but I've already succesfully tried those two.

Another good source for inspiration is Blackjack's Homepage.
Jason Farlander
As an alternative to the spyware/adware-ridden Kazaa, you might want to try WinMX.
Herald of Verjigorm
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
[ Spoiler ]

[ Spoiler ]
Req
Now is when I post something about Artificer. cool.gif

On a serious note, we've been gearing up for the Arc for some time. There's just enough clues lying around (and information the PCs have that they don't yet know is related) that it'll really get 'em going when they're inside for a meet and the doors come down... smile.gif
kryton
DUDE!!! Has no one heard of Ebay. That's the best place to buy out of print books and adventures. Stiggy baby is alos nice but ebay is too. Stiggy baby is nice if you go for a new product or hard to find 3rd edition. For 1st edition 2nd edition ebay is a great place to go. Check out Ebay-Shadowrun

I've got alot of stuff from EBAY.
Thistledown
Direct Connect is a bit harder to use, but much less invasive. They also have entire sections (hubs) just for RPG books.

And while the RAS is a good crawl, I belive he mentioned wanting premade maps, etc. Which the shutdown book is rather lacking in. Great plot, but leaves more to the GM than I think he's looking for.

Sorry I don't have any more postitive advice on runs.


[edit]I removed the links to direct connect and the RPG books hub, after seing the posts about them not being allowed[/edit]
Bearclaw
OK, try this.
Take any dungeon map ( I suggest Slave Pits of the Undercity), replace the guys with Orc Souel men, replace the monsters with ghouls, and anything tough with mages or a mixture of the two, and put an Orc/Ghoul/physad at the end. Add in a bunch of body parts, place it in Loveland/Payalup, and it's a run on the Tartarus ring's chop shop operation to rescue a contact or a friend of a friend.

That's the simple version of a run I did that everyone loved. It was a lot more complicated, and took one whole session to find out who had their friend and what they're going to do with her, and then another full session trashing ghouls and orc gangers, and a third session for the get-away (oh no, it's not that easy my friends), before they finished but they ended up with a couple new friends for life, and at least one mortal enemy who's whacked one of the party so far (I can't remember his name, but he's the leader of the Tartarus ring). Really, it was very successful, and I'll probably run more like it when our group cycles back to Shadowrun.
Adam
We've published adventures in The Shadowrun Supplemental fairly regularly, and almost all of them are suitable for new players and characters.
Mana Child
I personally find that people converting D&D adventures to Shadowrun (even though i love shadowrun) somewhat of an insult (not particularly personally though) becuase if you want dungeon crawls you should be playing D&D in the first place. Shadowrun isnt meant to do every type of game type well it cant but not well.
Kakkaraun
DnD isn't even good at dungeon crawls. Hell, all DnD is good at is...sitting there.
blakkie
QUOTE (Kakkaraun)
DnD isn't even good at dungeon crawls. Hell, all DnD is good at is...sitting there.

*wack* wobble.gif
RangerJoe
I've found the legwork section of a run to be very much like a dungeon crawl. Wait, no, strike that. Legwork is more like a pub crawl....
Mana Child
QUOTE (Kakkaraun)
DnD isn't even good at dungeon crawls. Hell, all DnD is good at is...sitting there.

i'll ignore that cuase you obviosly dont know what yoru talking about.
Voran
QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)
I love the idea:
"The room is 30' by 20' and 10' high, dug into the same dull grey stone as all the rest in the cave. There are two exits: the one you're standing in and one directly opposite, a 8' x 4' arch where a security door sits. In the back left corner there is a pile of bones and shell casings covered in spider webs. There is a steady "drop drop" sound of some waste materials leaking through the stone from the factory above into the corridor behind you. There are no light sources except a green "Exit" light above the security door. In front of the door there are 3 Ork Cyberzombies with MMGs on gyromounts and their Great Dragon pet. What do you do?"

Heh.

I cast magic missile!

I'm attacking the darkness!
Mana Child
LOL you have heard that one too!
that one cracked me up when i heard it.
mfb
dude, you can't be pitting 1st-level street sams against orcs with the cyberzombie template. that's, like, five CR too high.

how much nuyen does the GD have in its horde?
Firewall
Now there is something I hate about AD&D; the whining about levels. In SR or World of Darkness, players seem to be able to handle the 'there is another way' concept. They walk around the obstacle, they do anything BUT start a fight with the dragon/antediluvean/cthulhu. The same situation in AD&D and they charge in with sword drawn, expecting to kill it... (and for those of you who follow my rants, this is a perfect example of a situation where player stupidity has exceeded the 'lethal force' threshold)
mfb
yes. god forbid the system be used in the manner it was designed to be used.
gknoy
QUOTE (Firewall)
they do anything BUT start a fight with the dragon/antediluvean/cthulhu. The same situation in AD&D and they charge in with sword drawn, expecting to kill it...

To be fair, in many ofthe d&d situations I've been in, the threat levels have been either unavoidable, or it's expected that we face them. Because they hold the way out ofthe dungeon, or they ambushed us, or whatnot. Often, these odds have been overwhelmingly painful for us PCs; as a player, I don't enjoy not having a good chance.... but one also gets conditioned such that we tend to expect the [D|G]M not to let us have another option.

It's hard to tell when the Bad Ass Enemy (BAE) is
- somewhat over your head, and you're expected to beat it
- way over your head but the GM has some plot contrivance to save your ass, (hey its rare smile.gif)
- way over your head because (a) half the party isn't there this week, (b) the GM miscalculated and that undead thingy with damage resistance and such REALLY is more of a threat to your party than they thought, or © the CR ratings are all effed up (IMO)
- entirely avoidable but you stuffed things up and had to throw down (doh)
- partly avoidable, except you failed your avoidance check. Sucks to be you.
or, even worse,
- all ofthe party but one wanted to avoid it and that one other one jsut HAD to pick a fight (doh)

Basically, it's not that we WANT to get in the fight (well, some of us are smart enough not to ..), but that we feel we have no other choice. I think this mentality is especially encouraged by the fact that there are XP values given for "encounters" -- a euphemism for "group of hostiles you can kill or otherwise outwit".

Let's just say, I happen to like SR a lot more, in theory. =) Just as much potential for getting 0wned by the GM, if they are cruel or even make a mistake ("oops, guess that troll physad was a bit much for you guys, since you were kindof stuck in a box with him ...") - which I know I have been guilty of (mistakes, taht is) - but at least we as players don't (usually) feel obligaetd to DO it. We can always refuse the run from the JOhnson (and a good team will, occasionally, just as a good GM should plan for that and have some bad egg runs that a smart team should notice and avoid)

Oops ... i'm ranting ... I've been trolled, it seems, lol =D

As for dungeon crawls ... I know that SR's got some doozies of dungeon crawls (as in you're lucky to crawl away) in Renraku Shutdown . . . wink.gif
simonw2000
QUOTE (Jason Farlander)
As an alternative to the spyware/adware-ridden Kazaa, you might want to try WinMX.

speaking of which, do you know of any WinMX servers with SR stuff on?
Mana Child
In all the D&D games ive been in super strong enemies that we have encountered have just been put there to not make the game unrealistic eg: oh the game miraculously scales itself becuase the so called heroes are getting stronger. Also besides that i prefer D&D games that are not dungeon crawls. Eg. more talking an roleplaying and solving things without fighting and decent plots unlike the "oh there is a treasure there get ye to the the dungeon and slay yon dragon and steal his treasure type rant"

But i stick by my coment that SR probably isnt a game suited to a comman dungeon crawl.

And i'm not degrading SR at all i actually prefer it over D&D but i admit that i have a softspot for D&D since it was the first RPG i played.
Jason Farlander
QUOTE (simonw2000)
QUOTE (Jason Farlander @ Apr 21 2004, 09:26 PM)
As an alternative to the spyware/adware-ridden Kazaa, you might want to try WinMX.

speaking of which, do you know of any WinMX servers with SR stuff on?

Running a search for "shadowrun" brought up Target UCAS, London Sourcebook, Denver The City of Shadows, the Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America, and Rigger 3. A other times I've noticed just about every book, though never all at the same time. Notably, I have not ever seen Harlequin or Harlequin's Back.

It all depends on who is currently online/running WinMX.

I have not tried using different "Peer Caches" (You can select North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia/NZ, or Africa as your preferred Peer Cache), but, other than that, I dont think theres a way to even know what server youre connected to, much less choose which server to use.
Adam
Please drop the P2P related discussion; it is not tolerated here.
toturi
QUOTE (Adam)
Please drop the P2P related discussion; it is not tolerated here.

QUOTE
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Are P2P discussions in this context a contravention of any forum rules?
Nath
QUOTE (Posting guidelines)
Do not post links or requests for pirated material.
tisoz
QUOTE
Are P2P discussions in this context a contravention of any forum rules?

QUOTE
Do not post links or requests for pirated material.


edit: N before t? /edit
toturi
So? Are P2P discussions a request for pirated material?
kevyn668
Whats P2P??
lspahn72
QUOTE (toturi)
So? Are P2P discussions a request for pirated material?

Well, let not get flamey....But


WE ARE NOT A BUNCH ON NIMROD HERE...OF COURSE IT IS!

i mean people can fluff it up all they want, but out of all the people i know who use p2p, only 1 has ever told me the use it for a legit reason, in his case downloading wierdo music by unsign artist.

Anything else worthwhile is availible via website like the supplemental, NAGEE, and all the other good stuff out there....
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